This year has been the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said John Our, who has caught only 500 of the 180,000 pounds of cod he was allotted this year..........The numbers indicate a sudden, stunning decline in recent years, about which scientists have not settled on an explanation. On the Yukon, for example, 1,488 pounds of salmon were harvested in 2011, down from more than 859,000 pounds in 2006, a state study found.

Scientists have designed a brain implant that sharpened decision making and restored lost mental capacity in monkeys, providing the first demonstration in primates of the sort of brain prosthesis that could eventually help people with damage from dementia, strokes or other brain injuries.

The device recorded the crackle of firing neurons during the animals’ choices and transmitted it to a computer. Researchers at U.S.C., led by Theodore Berger, analyzed this neural signal, and determined its pattern when the monkeys made correct choices.

To test the device, the team relayed this “correct” signal into the monkeys’ brains when they were in the middle of choosing a possible picture match, and it improved their performance by about 10 percent.

The researchers then impaired the monkeys’ performance deliberately, by dosing them with cocaine. Their scores promptly fell by 20 percent.